Tech Winners and Losers: Smartphone Makers Advance

The smartphone makers were a strong subset among widely held tech stocks Tuesday after a report that smartphones' market share has increased yet again.

On Tuesday The NDP group reported that smartphones made up 23% of handset sales in the fourth quarter of 2008, up from 12% for the fourth quarter of 2007.

The report also said smartphone buyers bought more accessories with their phones (52%) than did buyers of other handsets accessory sales (41%).

" Palm ( PALM), Apple ( AAPL) and HTC all over-index when it comes to accessory purchases at the time of the smartphone purchase," said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for the NPD Group. "Particularly with Research In Motion's ( RIMM) large market share, resellers are apparently missing opportunities to sell more BlackBerry accessories."